


all I want to get is (a little bit closer)

by ohmcgee



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Crack Without Plot, Fluff and Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:35:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jesus christ you are the worst nap buddy ever."</p>
            </blockquote>





	all I want to get is (a little bit closer)

**Author's Note:**

> Written entirely for selfish purposes to appease my cuddlefic kink. If you're looking for something that makes sense, you've probably come to the wrong place.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Jason says, finishing up the last stitch on Tim’s thigh. “It’s almost dawn and you try to throw your leg over that stupid crotch rocket of yours you’re gonna rip the stitches clean out. Get some sleep, I’ll take the couch.”

“Your shoulder is fucked up,” Tim says, words slow to roll off his tongue thanks to the pain killers Jason made him take. “You take the bed.” He tries to get up but then Jason’s hand is firm and flat against his chest, pushing him back to the mattress. Tim’s so tired and drugged and bruised all over that he doesn’t even try to fight back, but he still manages to flash Jason a look that says he’s not going to let it go.

“Fine,” Jason growls. “God you are such a stubborn asshole.” Then he’s pulling the covers back and telling Tim to scoot the fuck over and is infinitely glad he splurged for the California king and nothing smaller, because they barely fit as is. 

“This is weird,” Tim mumbles. “Right?”

“Whatever,” Jason grumbles, shifting around behind him. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

 

***

 

About four hours later a car alarm going off outside Jason’s apartment building wakes Tim up. The throbbing in his leg has subsided to a dull ache and his brain and muscles are no longer foggy and soft around the edges from the pills Jason shoved in his mouth. Still, it takes him a minute to register the heavy weight pressed against his back and remember how he refused to let Jason sleep on his shitty futon and fuck his shoulder up even more just because Tim was dumb enough to get clipped by a stray bullet. That explains the heat against him, the feeling of Jason’s chest rising and falling against his back -- doesn’t exactly explain the weight of his arm draped over Tim’s chest or his breath, hot and humid against the back of Tim’s neck. He goes completely still when Jason shifts behind him, his nose brushing the hairs at the nape of Tim’s neck, but then Jason let’s out a soft chuckle.

“Don’t be a dick,” he says, untangling his arm from Tim and rolling onto his back until they’re no longer pressed together. “I didn’t molest you in your sleep or anything. Just sleep better with a warm body against me.”

Tim doesn’t exactly know what to say here, so he just gives a little nervous laugh. “Jason Todd, platonic cuddler. Who would’ve thought?”

“Grayson, for one,” Jason says and smirks, before he rolls onto his other side and falls back asleep.

 

***

 

“Hey, uh. Dick?” Tim doesn’t even know what he’s thinking. This isn’t really -- he doesn’t _need_ to know about what Dick and Jason did or did not used to do, but. He kind of does. 

“What’s up?”

Tim rubs the back of his neck and Dick’s eyebrows shoot up, recognizing the body language. “Spill it, kiddo.”

Tim sighs and spits it all out at once, like one giant run-on sentence. “I was patrolling with Jason last night and got grazed by a bullet and he patched me up and then we both kind of passed out on his bed and when I woke up he was--”

“Wrapped around you like an octopus with a kung-fu death grip?”

“More or less.”

Dick sighs, almost wistfully. “That’s our Jaybird.”

“You don’t think its weird?”

Dick gives him a strange look. “Weird? No? I mean, Bruce thinks its like, leftover from when he was on the streets. It would get really cold, you know, and he told me once about how him and some of the other kids would huddle together at night, share body heat to keep warm."

Tim chest tightens at the thought of Jason, small and cold and homeless. It’s something he tries not to think about too much, too emotionally compromising, “So it’s not,” he’s not really sure where he’s going with this, but maybe Dick will figure it out, “It’s not something I should worry about?”

Dick gives him a weird look, then laughs, reaches out and musses his hair all up. “Oh, you poor thing. Did no one ever give you cuddles?”

 

***

The thing is, Dick was right. There's a reason Tim's always twitched when Dick's hand would come down on his shoulder, why he always goes rigid when Dick or Steph or even Bruce occasionally pulls him in for a hug. Cuddling wasn't really a part of his childhood. Studying obsessively, practicing at every extracurricular his mother forced him to take until he was perfect, stalking masked vigilantes, sure, but never cuddling. 

He knows Dick was just kidding, that he didn't mean anything by it, but Tim can't help but feel like an outsider yet again, the little weird stalker kid with personal space issues. 

 

***

 

"You know I really do have better things to do than saving your ass," Jason says, hauling Tim up with one arm. He reaches into Tim's belt and grabs a few smoke bombs, chunking them down on the ground and disappears with Tim before the _two_ fucking gangs the kid decided to take on can see what happened. 

"I had it," Tim says as Jason throws him on his motorcycle, barely holding him up with one arm across his chest. 

"Oh yeah, you were totally winning at getting your skull kicked in," Jason says, gunning the throttle, but Tim's already passed out, head lolling back against his shoulder.

 

***

"What happened?" Tim asks, trying to ignore the blinding white pain behind his eyeballs. It doesn't work. 

Jason's sitting on the edge of the bed glaring at him like if this head wound doesn't kill him he has a few ideas of his own. "Refresh my memory, kid. How many concussions does this make this week?" 

Tim closes his eyes because the one small lamp on in the room is making him wish Jason would just go ahead and just put him out of his misery. "I may have miscalculated." 

"May," Jason mutters." You _may_ have a goddamn death wish."

"Your bedside manner kind of sucks," he laughs, and instantly regrets that choice, groaning and clutching his head in his hands, curling into the fetal position. 

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Jason smirks. "I'd say maybe this'll teach you not to throw yourself into the middle of a gang battle royale, but unlike you, I'm not a fucking idiot." 

Tim rolls over into one of Jason's pillows. He really isn't having the greatest week. It's not like he's doing it on purpose, like Jason thinks. He's just...off. Dick would say something like 'it was bound to happen sooner or later, Timmy,' but that doesn't mean he has to like it. Getting rescued by Jason twice in one week like some goddamn damsel in distress is one of those things he'd pay someone to make them both forget. 

Still, if Jason hadn't been there his brains would probably still be painting the pavement, so he guesses he can't be too pissed about it. 

"Ugh can you just," Tim mutters into the pillow. "Not talk. I know that's hard for you, but I'd really like to sleep."

"I think you missed the part about _concussion_ ," Jason tells him.

Tim rolls his eyes; even that hurts. "This isn't my first rodeo, Jason," he says. "You don't have to sit bedside and keep me awake all night. I'm fine." He manages to pull himself into a halfway sitting position to illustrate how fine he is, even though it makes him feel like he's about to puke all over Jason's bedspread. 

"If you think that you’re enough of a badass to fight unconsciousness," Jason says, pulling his shirt over his head, "Then you really do have brain damage. Move over."

"Huh?" Tim mumbles, then the bed is dipping beside him and Jason's grabbing him, manhandling him back onto his side and wrapping his arm around Tim's chest. "What are you doing?" 

"Only way to make sure you don't try to go out the window or pass out."

"I really don't think it's the only -"

"Wanna watch tv?" Jason ignores him, reaching over Tim to grab the remote of the night stand. "There's a new Walking Dead on the DVR I haven't seen yet." 

It's going to be a long night. 

 

***

 

The next time it happens, Tim is miraculously not injured, delirious, or both. Just a little exhausted. Okay a lot exhausted. He's running off of four hours of sleep in the last two days, not even consecutive, so when Jason tells him he looks like shit and offers to let him catch a quick nap at one of his nearby safe houses, Tim barely even tries to pretend that it doesn't sound like a great idea. 

Still, when he shrugs out of his cape and cowl and looks down at Jason’s old, worn out futon, he starts to rethink the idea, the image of his big, pillowtop mattress beckoning him like a siren song.

"Come on then, princess," Jason laughs and waves him toward the bedroom. “Can’t blame you. That used to be all I had to sleep on. I get neck spasms just looking at it.”

Tim follows him, tries not to stare when Jason tugs his shirt over his head, tries not look like he's rethinking this whole thing when Jason's hands fall to his belt. Instead he gets in the bed and curls onto his side, hearing the clink of Jason's belt falling to the ground, the rustle of denim when he slides his jeans off. Then Tim feels the mattress shift beneath Jason's weight, the heat of his body in such close proximity, but he stays on his side of the bed, doesn't make with the tentacle arms like the last few times they've so strangely ended up in bed together. 

Tim closes his eyes and slips his hand beneath the coolness of the pillow. Jason must stay here more than any of the other places he has because it smells like him, stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne that still manages to smell like the high dollar stuff, the slightly fruity scent of his shampoo that Tim’s embarrassed to admit he now recognizes. The bed is big and the sheets are really, really soft and Tim is so fucking tired, but it’s the kind of tired where you’re just too exhausted to sleep apparently, because even despite Jason’s bed being more comfortable than it looks, he can’t get comfortable in it, keeps squirming and shifting until the sheets are completely twisted around his waist and Jason’s making a frustrated noise into his pillow. 

“Jesus christ you are the worst nap buddy ever,” he groans and then Tim feels Jason’s knees bumping into the back of his legs, feels the solid heat of Jason’s chest pressing against his back, and he goes completely stock still when Jason’s hand curls around his hip. “I’m so tired I’m hearing colors, man,” he says, breath tickling the back of Tim’s neck. “Just go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Tim says, closing his eyes, feeling sleep already begin to creep up on him. “Just...just for a few minutes.”

 

***

 

When Tim wakes up its dark out and he can’t move, completely encased in a prison of Jason’s arms and legs, his chin digging into Tim’s shoulder painfully enough that Tim wonders how it didn’t wake him up. 

“Crap,” he says, trying to disentangle himself. There’s no way he slept that fucking long. Except the complete lack of daylight is kind of telling him otherwise. Shit. “Fuck. Jason, wake up.”

“Mrphrgm _fuckoff_ ,” Jason mutters groggily, a complete dead weight refusing to move. 

“You’re crushing me, you giant freak,” Tim complains, finally managing to lift up one of Jason’s arms and slip underneath it, having to resort to a move Dick taught him to twist and squirm his way out of the vice grip that is Jason’s thighs. Jason grumbles something unintelligible into his pillow and raises his arm, flipping Tim off before he turns his head and starts snoring again.

“Well, uh, thanks, I guess,” Tim says awkwardly, pulling the cowl over his face, and crawls out of Jason’s window. 

 

***

 

Somehow, between the gunshot wounds and the concussions and the days bleeding together, it becomes a thing. Patrolling together, watching each others backs, then crashing together at one of their places. 

It would be weird, Tim thinks, except Jason acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world and Dick already made it clear that he’s making a big deal out of nothing, so Tim does his best to just go with it. He even finds he sleeps better and wakes up feeling more refreshed when he naps with Jason, and although he will tell no one _ever,_ , it’s kind of nice being the little spoon to Jason’s freakishly huge big spoon. Jason, he’s noticed, even seems less of a ruthless dick since they’ve started doing...whatever you call this. Tim hasn’t had much (any) experience with this whole cuddling/platonically sleeping together thing before and he’s not entirely sure this is how it usually works, but it kind of works for them, so he tries not to overthink it too much.

The thing is, he does think about it. Of course. He thinks of all the ways it can go wrong, how Jason could kill him in his sleep if he’s feeling ornery that day, how he could take pictures of him with his phone and send it to every Teen Titan in Tim’s contact list, or even ways it could go wrong that Tim only thinks about briefly, how Jason could think this is something more and how it could fuck literally _everything_ up. 

Laying in his own bed one night, staring up at the ceiling, hyper aware of the cold, empty space next to him, Tim realizes there’s something he _didn’t_ think of. The possibility that he could become accustomed to their strangely comfortable cuddle sessions. He twists and turns, tangling the sheets around his legs, knocking pillows onto the floor, glancing at the clock every half hour until its four in the morning and he hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep. 

“This is bad,” he says to the dark, empty room and gets up to make tea.

 

***

 

After the third night of not sleeping, kind of wired in that manic way where everything smells really vivid and you can’t stop blinking and nothing tastes right and Bruce forbids him from patrolling until he gets his shit together, Tim admits defeat and jumps from roof to roof until he finds the safe house Jason spends the most time at. He climbs through the window he knows Jason leaves unlocked and frowns when he realizes the place is empty. He’s too exhausted to try the apartment on the other side of town though, figures Jason is just having a late night of it, and wanders through the apartment until he’s in Jason’s bedroom. Tim shrugs off his suit until he’s just in the undershirt and shorts he wears beneath it and slips under the covers, sighing as he burrows into Jason’s side of the bed and wraps the covers around him like a cocoon. It hasn’t been long since Jason’s been here, his scent still clinging to the sheets and pillows, and its comforting to Tim in a way that he should really be concerned about, except before he can start to analyze it in his head, he’s already dozing off into sweet, blissful sleep. 

 

***

 

Jason gets home sometime around noon, starts peeling clothes off as soon as he walks through the door. He’s covered in blood and gross alien slime and dirt and he needs a fucking shower two _days_ ago, but mid-stride he notices the left window is cracked open and his hand goes for his gun reflexively, swearing when he realizes he just dropped his holster to the ground with his pants. Quickly he bends down and fishes it out of the pile, sneaking around corners with it cradled in his hands, ready for a throw-down when he kicks his door open and finds--

Tim. Wrapped up in his blankets like a little burrito, hair sticking up all over his head, still sleeping despite all that noise Jason just made busting in his own damn bedroom. 

“Jesus,” he gives a soft, slightly hysterical laugh and places his gun on the dresser before walking into the bathroom to get that shower he so very desperately needs. He puts on a pair of dry boxers when he gets out and looks down at Tim’s sleeping face, realizes he doesn’t usually see his face when they do this. He looks so different when he’s sleeping, so soft and unguarded, like he might actually be a real boy after all. 

Jason shakes his head like he can erase all the complicated thoughts and feelings trying to fuck with him like an etch-a-sketch, and slides in the bed behind Tim, snakes an arm around his waist and buries his face into the crook of his shoulder, falling asleep before his brain can tell him what a very, very bad idea this is.

 

***

 

“Morning,” Jason says and he’s so close Tim can actually feel his lips move across his skin. He’s still got one hand clamped down on Tim’s hip and -- _oh god_ \-- yep, that’s his dick digging into the small of Tim’s back. “Care to tell me why I came home to find you in my bed like a little lost puppy?”

Tim tries to answer, tries to think of a legitimate, not-humiliating reason he would do such a thing, but Jason’s thumb is moving in little circles around his hipbone and it’s making it kind of difficult to produce any type of coherent thought.

“Cause I’m pretty sure you’ve got your own bed,” he murmurs right next to Tim’s ear. “Probably some huge, fancy piece imported from Iceland or some shit with like ten million thread count egyptian cotton sheets or whatever rich little playboys like you buy.”

“I don’t--” but his words are choked back when Jason shifts behind him and his presses right up right against Tim’s ass. 

“Hm?”

“I couldn’t,” Tim says, trying to regulate his heart beat but failing tremendously. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Jason makes an interested sound behind him. “Yeah, I’ve been having the same problem.”

Tim’s breath stutters. “You...have?”

“Yeah,” Jason says. “Guess I got too used to your bony ass up next to me.”

“Speaking of,” Tim says, squirming back against Jason, and even though his brain is screaming _abort abort_ , he takes pleasure in the little hiss of air that Jason lets out when he does it, the way his fingers curl around and dig into his skin.

“That,” Jason says. “Is a phenomenally _bad_ idea, baby bird.”

“I think we passed bad idea a couple of cuddle sessions ago,” Tim says, turning around until he’s facing Jason. 

“Really, really bad idea,” Jason says when Tim kisses him, but then Jason’s leaning in and kissing him back, tangling his fingers in Tim’s hair, kissing him slow and hungry, gripping Tim’s hip to pull him flush against him. He knew it, knew the first time he let Tim crawl into his bed, bleeding and bruised, knew the first time he woke up all tangled together with him that he was fucked. Tim’s right though, the damage is already done, apparently. He just had his tongue in his mouth, there’s really no going back. So instead of freaking out about how this is just going to fuck everything up, he rolls his hips against Tim’s and Tim lets out the most pornographic sound Jason’s maybe ever heard, arches his back off the bed and bites his bottom lip like that was the best thing that ever happened to him. _Jesus._

“You and I obviously have different definitions of bad,” Tim says and hooks his legs around Jason’s waist, pulling him down. 

Jason really hopes he’s right.


End file.
